Arun Basil Lal
Arun discovered WordPress as a blogging solution and fell in love with it. So much so, that he pivoted his Electrical Engineering career to become a full time WordPress developer.
WordPress has been at the core of all his projects ever since. As a freelance web developer, he has worked with clients of all sizes from all around the world. Some of his WordPress plugins, namely Auto Image Attributes and Super Progressive Web Apps were well received by the community.
Arun currently works for WP Rocket, a powerful caching plugin for WordPress. At WP Rocket he makes customers happy by solving technical tickets and improving the product based on customer feedback.
If you want to chat about WordPress automation, or selling your WordPress product, you should say hello to him.
Session: Progressive Web Apps And WordPress
Prathamesh Sudhakar Palve
Prathamesh Palve works as a Happiness Engineer with StoreApps.
He has been working on WordPress from 2009 since he started making websites. Before this, he has worked with CybroGeek as a Course Coordinator & also ran a small web development firm in Mumbai. He loves open source culture and also contributes by doing translations for many themes and plugins and is also a WPTV contributor.”
Workshop: WordPress TV Introduction & Contributor Session.
Sanyog Shelar
Sanyog approaches to know the organisation to apply the knowledge and skill to appropriately deliver value that is in line with organisational requirements.
Sanyog is involved in varied IT related fields like DBA, Security Management, Network Management etc.
Sanyog was impressed with Inaugural WordCamp for Nashik on 16 October 2016 and that’s how his journey began to give back to the WordPress community. Since then he has started on various way contributing WordPress core contributions, Theme Review, Plugin Development, Meta contribution, and Polyglots. He has also contributed Payment Gateway Plugin Like Instamojo for WordCamps across India.
He is also a cybersecurity expert for panel discussion over various English, Hindi, and Marathi news channels.
He is part of Responsible Netism at this moment he and his team reach to 1 million students through school and guide them and teach them about Internet Safety.
He is the key player in building Version Next Technologies Pvt Ltd. by carrying 12yrs of experience in development and technology.
With earning master’s degree in Technology and Business Administration. He is very passionate about work, and like giving back to the community.
Session: WordPress Security Workshop
Vachan Kudmule
Vachan became an entrepreneur in 2002, at 17, when he started his firm KDC (Krazy Devil Creationz). It has grown into a full-fledged web solutions agency.
He’s studied architecture and started his second firm KDC Inc in 2006 which provides architecture and interior design solutions.
He ventured into eCommerce Consulting in 2009 and started KDC Pay which assists startups in building full-fledged eCommerce sites with Payment Gateway accruing and integration.
At present Vachan is involved with all the three while also heading the design and technology teams for White Shadows, a digital marketing agency & KDC EduVents, the parent firm of FOSS.tech; an initiative to assist the FOSS community to grow.
Vachan’s motto is “everything can and must be designed”.
He’s passionate about FOSS (Free Open Source Software) and helping start-ups grow their business.
Self-learning and exploring new ideas keeps him motivated, and he has pioneered many industry first concepts in alternative access mediums.
Session: How to GSTize WooCommerce.
Amit Sharma
Marketer, photographer, techie, Amit is in post-entrepreneur life – he ran a WordPress development agency in Mumbai for 3+years where he could boast of having serviced marquee clients from select industries. He shifted gears in 2016.
Currently he runs the strategy department at a private banking firm.
Session: A Business in WordPress: Caveats.
Nisha Singh
Nisha Singh is responsible for project delivery at WPoets Technology LLP. She is also a WordPress theme review team member since 2010 and WordPress TV moderator since 2017.
Workshop: WordPress TV Introduction & Contributor Session.
Dennis Snell
As a software developer at Automattic, Dennis spends his time chasing problematic code, writing about design, and pursuing simplicity. He travels around as a nomad exploring cultures and people and places. When not programming he is probably cooking, hunting dark skies, or thinking about code.
Session: Playing well with others: writing solid code in large community projects.
Varun Sharma
Varun is the Founder & CEO at Tech Banker – A Premium WordPress Plugin Development Firm based out of Chandigarh, India.
Apart from an entrepreneur, he is a travel enthusiast and loves traveling across the globe with his family. He loves Punjabi food, and is a proud father of 2 cutest kids.
He started his journey for entrepreneurship in the year 2009 and had a privilege of providing services to Xerox GmbH.
Tech Banker today has around 16 WordPress plugins published over WordPress.org
Session: Tide : The Next Big Thing on Coding Standards.
Faishal Saiyed
Faishal had his first encounter with WordPress in 2012, and since then it has become his hobby, passion, and the center of his profession. Worked through these years as an employee, a freelancer, a contractor and a founder, he has plummeted through the depths of front-end development, back-end development, Dev-Ops and leadership.
He enjoys interacting with open-source softwares and believes that open source is the future of web which is built on reciprocal volunteerism. Working remotely since 2013, he appreciates his life as a digital-nomad and loves traveling around the world.
Workshop: Gutenberg: Beginner’s guide for WordPress users.
Umesh Kumar
Umesh is a code wrangler at WPMU DEV who spends his most of the time working on image optimisation plugin Smush which have got more than a million active installations.
He’s been working in WordPress for nearly five years with an active contribution. Apart from the WordPress, Hiking and Camping are of great interest to him.
Workshop: Gutenberg: Beginner’s guide for WordPress users
Bhushan S. Jawle
Bhushan is a Computer Engineer by education, with over 22 years of professional experience.
He started programming when DOS was the only operating systems on personal computers.
Starting with C, and has worked on various languages including (assembly) C++, VC++, Java, Javascript and PHP and has been working on web development since early 2001 (Sun Certified Java Developer and Sun Certified Web Component Developer).
He has worked on various time critical systems in investment banking domain including algorithmic trading and led a team which was amongst the first to send algorithmic orders in India on NSE & BSE.
Out of his 15 years of experience in investment banking technologies, he has spent almost a decade in Tokyo(Japan), leading to almost compulsive focus on Kaizen (continuous improvement) and speaks conversational Japanese.
Bhushan believes in philosophy of Open Source (“Free as in speech”), and runs a web & mobile development firm Sanganak Technologies LLP, which specializes in WordPress, Yii and React Native.
Apart from technology, he is a father, husband, singer (Kishore Kumar & RD Burman fan), mimicry artist, a Toastmaster, a voracious reader and plans to read 50 new books in 2018 (yes again !).
Session: Building a better (reactive) WordPress
Sanat Hegde
Sanat is a self taught developer who runs a web development company called astech solutions in Mumbai.
astech solutions works with design agencies to convert their designs to custom wordpress websites,Angular driven web or mobile applications.
Session Title: The basics of why and how to use Git in your development workflow.
Dhanendran Rajagopal
Dhanendran has more than 5 years of experience in web application development. He has worked with many projects from small scale application to large scale applications.
He is been contributing to WordPress in all the possible ways as core contribution, translation and local WordPress meetup organizer.
Session: WordPress Roles & Capabilities: How we can take control over it?
Rupok Chowdhury Protik
Rupok started his career as a LAMP Stack Web Application Developer and currently working at WPMU DEV as Support Superhero for more than 2 years. Rupok is a WordPress evangelist, UI/UX specialist, an Open-Source fanatic and an Organizer of the WordPress Meetup Dhaka Chapter.
He is working with WordPress for last 6 years and is very active in local WordPress community. He loves to travel a lot and take lifestyle pictures everywhere. In his idle time, he writes stories at his personal blog.
Session: How to Provide Better Support
Shilpa Shah
Shilpa Shah is co-founder of Hummingbird Web Solutions and manages CyberChimps, WPeka and SlideDeck. She was bitten by the travel bug early on and was lucky enough to have a job (in her earlier corporate avatar) that took her to various countries, meeting some truly wonderful people everywhere! She loves dancing in the rain, and trekking and camping in the wild.
Session: Pivoting your business – When, Why, How
Shailee Sheth
Shailee is an Entrepreneur and a Marketer who has a flair for Technology and Innovation. Shailee is the Founder and CEO of NewVariable, a boutique Technology Consultancy Start-Up based in Pune that operates remotely and she also serves as a Consultant in Technology to several Start-Ups in Mumbai, London and New York.
Shailee has worked with MNC Businesses in the HCM Industry and has successfully built and delivered both a Platform and a Product at an Enterprise scale to Global 100 Customers. Apart from her busy workaholic life, Shailee loves Traveling and Adventure Sports.
Session: Managing your Project : The Agile Way.
Sheeba Abraham
Sheeba was a working professional in a reputed multinational. In an effort to balance priorities between family & professional, she decided to be a freelance WordPress Developer for about 4.5 years now. She specializes in Theme development and has developed several type of websites. She loves to contribute to the community, as WordPress has provided her the opportunity to learn many new things.
She is a proud mother of two lovely kids and supported by an understanding husband.
Workshop: Beginners Workshop
Abhishek Deshpande
Abhishek is web technology consultant based in Nagpur, Currently Working as Solutions Architect at Peenak Solutions. with 10+ years of experience in Web Development, Digital Marketing across various domains.
Abhishek started with his WordPress version 1.8. as a blogger in 2006, he has been active in WordPress community since last 5 years. He is serial WordCamper and Twitter addict, you can find him on Twitter at any random hour.
Session: Developing WordPress Frontend with Chrome Developer Tools
Jayman Pandya
Experience Designer who has spent a decade of designing experiences, I am a go-to guy for a lot of startups and agencies in the city of dreams, Mumbai.
I have served as a Design Head at companies like Mumbai Educational Trust, Zee TV, Indigo Consulting (A LeoBurnett company), Ziffi and UX consultant for 8 startups in Mumbai Startup scene. Currently am working on projects for Mahindra, JCB, Godrej & ICICI.
I am currently toiling to setup a WordPress based SaaS service and am in middle of expanding my freelance services into a full scale agency.
It is my life’s mission to converge the designer/developer approach towards Experience & Visual Design.
Session: Increase effectiveness of your WordPress sites with Gestalt principles
Hardeep Asrani
Hardeep Asrani is a developer and Star Wars fan from Kanpur. He loves contributing to WordPress community in many ways, including support, themes, plugins and more. You can find him on Slack pretty much all the time exploring different parts of WordPress community.
Hardeep works for ThemeIsle.com as a support ninja and developer. Hardeep was also part of the organizing team of WordCamp Kanpur 2017.
Session: Are you ready for Gutenberg?
Workshop: Writing your first Gutenberg Block.
Varun Krishnan
He runs one of India’s most visited gadget portal FoneArena.com which he started back when in college in 2005 with a mission to help Indian consumers with their mobile phone purchase. Till date, FoneArena has helped over 500 million consumers around the globe with their gadget purchase.
A huge section of the site is powered by WordPress. Prior to FoneArena, he started his career as a web developer and spent some time in Silicon Valley before returning to India.
Session: Securing WordPress.
Pratishtha Shrotriya Khan
Storyteller, Unicorn Spotter, Visual Stylist. Not in any particular order.
Session: Travel Stories Only You Can Tell
Pratik Ghela
Working as Customer Happiness Manager at PSD To Manythings, Pratik Ghela has been coding websites since 2008. He left coding in 2014 and now focuses only on handling his customers. He and his team has managed to develop about 500+ WordPress websites. Programming since 2008, he lately moved into the role of Customer Happiness and makes sure his customers are happy. His core interests revolve around Frontend Development, WordPress, AMP & PHP.
Session: How to AMPesize your WordPress website?
Khyati Gala
Khyati Gala started her career with WordPress five years back and ever since she’s been in love with it. She has an experience of four years as a plugin tester and is currently working as a happiness engineering for WordPress in Automattic.
She’s a people’s person and people like her company immediately as they meet her. She’s been mentoring everyone around openheartedly. Apart from her career, she enjoys the company of her family and travels as much as she can.
Workshop: WooCommerce Workshop.
Ulrich Pogson
Ulrich is a dedicated WordPress contributor, especially as a senior reviewer for the Theme Review Team. He started the WordPress Meetup in Bern @WPBern was the lead organisers for WordCamp Bern in 2017.
He works for required, a remote WordPress agency from Switzerland & Germany, as a WordPress developer.
Session: Managing WordPress from the command line.
Anoosha Reddy Terala
Anoosha is an Digital Accessibility consultant working at Deque Software Private Limited, Hyderabad with an industry experience spans across 2 years in digital accessibility space.
She have a proven expertise in effort estimations, project documentations, Requirement analysis, Accessibility consulting which includes planning, strategizing and executing accessibility compliance audits and providing contextual recommendations.
Session: Retrofitting Large scale WordPress site for Accessibility.
Christopher Skene
Chris is a digital services consultant, specialising in solution design, technical architecture, UX, and strategic consulting for enterprise and government-grade CMS, web application and digital publishing projects.
He is currently head of Asia-Pacific at Platform.sh.
Session: The secrets of high-performing development teams.
Suyogya Shukla
I’m Suyogya – an 18 years old WordPress enthusiast working as a Happiness Engineer at Automattic. I’m also interested in design and web development. Over at Automattic, I work with the WordPress.com team to help people use our products on a daily basis.
I’m one of the organizers of WordCamp Kanpur and have been active in the Indian WordPress Community for quite some time now. I also enjoy a bit of UX designing every once in a while.
Session: How WordPress can change lives ?
Nirav Mehta
Nirav is called the entrepreneur geek. A geek turned entrepreneur who still loves writing code 😉
He’s a storyteller – his talks at earlier WordCamps were extremely well received.
Nirav has built a rather eventful track record over the last 19 years. He launched India’s first electronic magazine, a thriving web agency that went down in 2009, made a heroic return and recovery, then a string of successful product businesses in parallel. He’s a published author of three books and speaks at various tech and business events.
But hey, numbers and all the claim-to-fame apart, what’s most important about him is that he is down to earth, has great knowledge and experience and loves to help. So if you have any questions about WordPress, WooCommerce; starting up, running or scaling a tech business, he’s your goto guy!
You can learn more about his WordPress solutions at: Storeapps and Icegram
Session: In search of the best WordPress theme
Andrea Middleton
Andrea Middleton has worked with WordCamp organizers since 2011, helping people plan events that inspire people to do more with WordPress, connect the WordPress community, and contribute to the WordPress project.
A wine enthusiast and avid reader of science fiction, Andrea lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two kids.
Session: Becoming a Better Open Source Citizen (Despite Human Nature).
Dhara Kothari
Dhara Kothari officially started telling stories since 2012, through Katha Kosa, and like her mother, she has inherited the passion and ability to weave a tale, since childhood. However, Dhara started her career as a writer, journalist, researcher and finally giving into her call to tell stories in every way, for any one who cared to hear a good story. She strongly believes age has nothing to do with stories and the fact that everything in the universe tells a story. You just need to listen to one.
Dhara’s passion for everything related to stories does not stop at just telling stories, but creating one as well and handling and managing story related events. Besides conducting storytelling sessions for all age groups. Dhara has handled workshops on topics ranging from the art of storytelling, to being more creative; how to write and record stories, how to think in terms of stories, how to tell stories, speeches and marketing in form of stories. Even how to be honest through storytelling. How to balance ethics and competition, spiritual based stories and so on. Fundamentally, how to push the human brain to go beyond analysis and being more creative and imaginative and to find solutions to varied problems through stories. And not just telling stories but to create a whole new world through storytelling through transmedia storytelling.
Katha Kosa has also ventured into gaming and creation of apps related to stories, specializing in ancient games. They have also made ebooks of short stories and photo stories. They have even made audio stories and had a channel of her own on few podcasts. Katha Kosa started a Story Club years ago, the first of its kind in the country. Where the members regularly meet to share and listen to stories.
There’s lots more to this lady than just telling stories. She thinks, breathes and survives her weird life through stories and its immense unlimited knowledge of the ancients.
Katha Kosa literally means ‘Treasury of Stories’ in Prakrit language.
Workshop: Tackling creative block through stories Workshop.
Fairy Dharawat
Fairy Dharawat likes to read, write, and draw. The order changes from time to time. Writing movie reviews is fun for her but its the workshops on stories and drawings she organizes with Katha Kosa where she gets to talk about them in their full glory.
She started Stories4hire her story collective, which completes a year (time sure flies!). She has talked about how to blog and guides on best practices for writing emails with IIDE, a digital marketing institute.
She also has a full-time job as a copywriter, and she’s normally nice but gets cranky from time to time, due to getting tired.
Her advice to you is:
1) To understand our mad world, become a reader.
2) And to live a life worth writing about. Even if it’s boring 🙂 Keep writing!
Workshop: Tackling creative block through stories Workshop.
Session: How to write better to do lists.